Persuasion in American Animated Movie Trailers (2010-2018): A Study in Multimodal Discourse Analysis

Abstract

Abstract Movie trailers are fundamental promotional tools that companies and studios cannot do without nowadays. Thus, this study attempts to investigate the persuasive means by which movie trailer producers persuade the viewers to watch the promoted films. To achieve this goal, the researcher conducts a multimodal discourse analysis of nine American animated movie trailers produced between 2010 and 2018 under the adventure category. The promoted films are Tangled (2010), Brave (2012), The Croods (2013), Big Hero 6 (2014), How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014), Moana (2016), Coco (2017), The Boss Baby (2017) and Incredibles 2 (2018). These animated movie trailers have been chosen owing to the fame and reputation of their producing companies. Moreover, the high box office of the promoted films proves the effectiveness and the persuasiveness of the promotional trailers. This study employs Baldry and Thibault’s (2006) multimodal transcription model, Maier’s (2006) model, and Cohen’s (1998) music model in order to analyze the different modes in the data. These tools of analysis are employed under the persuasion framework of Cockcroft and Cockcroft (2005) as well as van Dijk’s (1998, 2006, & 2013) concept of persuasion. The significance of this study stems from its interdisciplinary nature as it integrates approaches to linguistics and cinematography. Moreover, the study depends on the mixed approach. In other words, it is both qualitative and quantitative. It is concluded that the expressive images, the appealing music, and the touching text all complement each other and harmonize to persuade the viewers to the greatest extent to watch the promoted movie. No sole mode works independently of the others or persuades separately. Moreover, playing on the viewers’ emotions is a major strategy employed to achieve high degrees of persuasion.